Oppression against women has taken many different shapes alongside cultures in the world. In many cultures, it has been present in the shapes of feminicides, rapes, and female genital mutilation. It has also been perpetrated from the private to the public sphere, and from the families to the individual members.

In the northern Ghana, the presence of patriarchal culture reinforces gender-based attribution and accusation of witch craft, with the result that the accused woman is left with no option than to flee to one of the witch camps where her security and safety is believed to be guaranteed. 2

The heart-breaking account of Fatoumata would constitute a mark of challenge to completely believe that the witch camps are actually the ‘sanctuaries of safety and security’. Fatoumata, a staunch Catholic who became a victim of witch craft accusation together with her mother for over twenty years, but believed to have been liberated by her faith in Jesus through the intercession of Mary. I could hardly believe when she recounted her tragic but miraculous event during testimony time in the following words:

‘We were accused of witch craft and were painfully expelled by our siblings from the village to Gnani witch camp’. Even before then, my mother and I were brought to the village square by our siblings and the community’s self-proclaimed witch hunter, to confess being witches. We initially resisted, but after numerous tortures, abuses and hoped to survive, we yielded to the power of their accusation. It is sad to note that, this accusation started when my father died by a snake bite. After the final funeral rites, some members of my paternal family members discussed with my mother to do soothsaying to find out the cause of the accident leading to the death of my father. But my mother declined her support of the idea because it was against her Catholic faith and that didn’t go down well with them. As a result, they accused my mother and I to have bewitched my dad.

She narrated: ‘In addition to having to face physical abandonment, we suffered many abuses in the camp; such as monetary exploitation, emotional abuse, and diversion of relief by camp leaders from Catholic Caritas, and force labour with little or no pay’. Sometimes, we were used as free or cheap labour on the farms of the traditional priest and other community members.

1Evans Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracle and Magic among the Azande (London: Claredon Press, 1937), 17.

2Mariam Hunter, The Prison Sanctuary of Witch Hunters (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997),13

In name of hunger, some of the victims’ livelihood and dependents would endure sexual exploitation.

Faced with harsh realities in the camp, my mom will pray the rosary with me, notably the sorrowful and glorious mysteries. It was through those moments, I learned that each decade provides an opportunity to meditate on one of the mysteries and events in the lives of Jesus Christ and his mother Mary.

During those moments, I often asked that the Rosary has been exalted in the church, but, ‘what does it mean to us suffering in this camp’? My mother will teach me about how through the intercession of Mary and the rosary, God granted his church victory over the Muslims invasion.

She made me believe that through our continuous praying of the Rosary, God would vindicate us from our accusation. Admittedly, long before my mother died at the camp, she turned to the Rosary as a sign of her being liberated by faith. It was this message of faith that she wanted to pass on to me, so that I could look beyond the oppressive culture of our day and follow Jesus in the most fruitful way.

More often, in our sad times, she will remind me of the Scripture where Jesus quoted Isaiah: ‘He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberties to captives…’ (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18) to strengthen me. As I look back, I realise that my mother has taught me to understand Scripture in a way that affirms my dignity, self-worth and liberty. Despite the social stigma relating to witch craft accusation, many hold respect for me after my vindication and whenever I visited home in the north.

Today, my experience in praying the Rosary reminds me of the Exodus passage in which God appears to Moses and said: ‘I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and I have heard their cry of complain…so I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptian…’(Exodus 3:7).

My mother and I were not asking for political liberation, but liberation from an oppressive culture. We prayed for liberation from a culture which builds on false accusation. We desired nothing but liberty from a culture which has the power to marginalise and oppress its very people from a worthy life and human rights. And the only hope for this liberation was to turn to Jesus through the intercession of Mary, because He alone is God and would never take sides with such a culture.